


Guess We'll Have to Settle

by orphan_account



Category: Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22798471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Domestic struggles and discovering motherhood is hard when you're alone—however literally you want to take that.
Relationships: Francisco "Catfish" Morales/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	Guess We'll Have to Settle

Crying. Horrible, earth-shattering crying accompanied by terrified screams of “Mommy!”. You jolt awake in bed, hair askew, flinging the covers off of your body and sprinting to Isabella’s room. 

Your daughter’s eyes are wide open, hot tears streaming in rivulets down her reddened, puffy cheeks. She’s up in her crib, arms flailing as she leans over the railing in a desperate attempt to get to you. Night terrors.

There’s an old armchair pushed into the corner of her room that you sit on as Isabella clings to you, screaming and sobbing so heartbreakingly in your ears. You know there’s nothing you can do other than wait it out. Your only wish is that Frankie was here with you so you’d have a shoulder to cry on too.

He’d left days ago on a trip with the rest of the guys, assuring you nothing was amiss, that it was just a simple vacation with his friends. But you’d seen right through him. Seen the way his fingers kept fidgeting as you said your goodbyes, felt the tightness of his hug as if he was afraid and the certitude of his last kiss to you before he pulled out of the driveway. 

He always gets antsy before a flight. But the last two things worried you relentlessly to where you couldn’t even fall asleep for the few moments where Isabella was quiet and content. You’re sure you must look a sight with a bedraggled head, puke-stained sleep shirt, and bloodshot eyes that glisten with unshed tears in the moonlight streaming through the window. Life is hard when you feel all alone.

Yours and Frankie’s relationship had been on thin ice when you’d discovered you were pregnant. At the time, he was only talking emptily about getting clean only to come home in a state of incoherence and inebriation that scared you to point of locking your bedroom door at night. It took a lot of arguing, pushing, and the packing of your bags to get his head screwed back on straight.

_ This was it. This was the last straw. You couldn’t take it anymore. _

_ Bending over as far as your swollen belly would allow, you zip up the bag full of clothes and the cash you’d been secretly saving for a while. Putting on shoes would’ve been futile, so you heave the bag over your shoulder and prepare to leave the house barefoot until the front door suddenly opens and you’re met with your boyfriend’s face that turns from happy, to confused, to hurt all in a matter of the five seconds it takes to discern your appearance. _

_ “What are you doing?” he asks still, voice wavering. _

_ He’s sober. The fact that instant guilt rips through you like a knife makes you hate him and yourself. “Leaving.” _

_ “Why?” The two of you stand rigid across from one another as if you’re cowboys in a duel. _

_ “You haven’t been sober in months.” _

_ His brows furrow in anger at that. “I’m sober now!” _

_ “But tomorrow you might not be!” You don’t mean for it to come out as much of a sob as it does. “I’m tired of locking our door every night, afraid you’re gonna do something to me or the baby.” _

_ At his step forward, you take a step back, and you can see the shattering of his heart in his coffee eyes. “Is that what you think of me?” The way your head turns, eyes darting to the ground is the only response he needs. “I would never do anything to you. Even jacked up on all that shit, those kinds of thoughts never once crossed my mind!” _

_ His words quell the fear inside you, but your anger still boils on high. “How am I supposed to know that? How when you’re gone every night I go to bed in pain and asleep every morning I’m heaving over the toilet?” Silence. “Go ahead and give me your excuse, Francisco. Because until I see you actually do something about it, I’m leaving and she—” You point towards your protruding stomach with all its stretch marks and patchy skin— “will never know who you are.” _

Nine months of pregnancy and rehab, fourteen hours of brutal labor and anxious waiting, and suddenly the world didn’t seem so difficult when Isabella’s big, brown eyes opened to gaze at your and her father. At that moment, Frankie promised his days of drugs and military freelancing were over.

_ Everything hurt—mind, body, soul. You’re terribly exhausted, leaning against Frankie as you hold Isabella, as the two of you decided to name her in honor of Frankie’s mom, in your arms. Your hand trembles with exertion as you reach to smooth a thumb over her tiny, pink cheek. _

_ “I’ve never been more proud of you,” Frankie says, pressing a loving kiss to your sweaty temple. _

_ Dry, cracked lips turn into a smile. “I could say the same for you.” It’s your turn to press a loving kiss to his temple, though you struggle to reach with all the cords attached to you. _

_ You’re about to meet his lips halfway when movement in your arms diverts your attention. Baby Isabella is wiggling about, waking up groggily and yawning before her eyes, covered in itty bitty boogers, open for the first time. They’re wonderfully brown, so like Frankie’s that your heart weeps. _

_ “That right there, that’s it. I can’t leave that. I can’t leave you. The freelancing? I’m finished.” _

_ “You promise?” _

_ “I promise.” _

_ So much for that promise,  _ you think, holding your screaming child in your arms as you will yourself to keep stable. But how can you when your stability is a thousand miles away, getting himself into needless danger? You’re not angry that he lied because it was Pope’s idea and Pope is important to him.

He’s been clean for a year, hasn’t left your side for more than a day; everything you’ve asked, he’s done. All you want is for him to be back home because you’re tired, stressed, and scared because you were in over your head thinking you could’ve done this by yourself.

Isabella has calmed now, her breathing even and a thumb stuck into her mouth and you place her back into her crib with a heavy sigh. But the unmistakable sound of the front door opening and closing and keys being dropped into the bowl in the foyer has your heart pounding out of hopefulness. 

You make your way down the dark hallway in just your dirty shirt and underwear, breath hitching when you see Frankie’s silhouette hunched over, outlined by the light of the fridge as he digs through to find something to snack on. The tears you tried so desperately to keep inside begin tumbling down your face.

“Frankie?” you whimper, taking a slight step forward and reaching a hand out because it wouldn’t surprise you if you were hallucinating at this point.

The speed with which he turns around is startling, and your eyes immediately catch the small cut scabbed over across the top of his cheekbone. Both of you are concerned for the other for differing reasons, but the passion is unsurmountable when you each grasp at each other in a tangle of limbs.

“I missed you,” comes out of both of your mouths in varying states of distress, but somehow the earth has been put back on its axis as you breathe in his familiar smell with your face pushed into his neck. 

No questions are asked, no more words are shared; just a simple hug shared between two struggling souls. That night, Isabella has no more night terrors and you finally fall asleep with Frankie’s entire body entwined with yours, one hand held tightly to yours as it’s splayed over your mottled stomach. 


End file.
